2010 China International Conference on Electricity Distribution

Performance of process bus communication of transient traveling

waves data in smart substation
Bin Wang1, Zheng Ge2, Xinzhou Dong1, Enshu Jin2, Zhiqian Bo3
1Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
2Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Northeast Dianli University, Jilin 132012, China
3ALSTOM GRID Co. UK, Stafford, ST17 4LX UK
E-MAIL: binw_ee@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn, giantgz@126.com, xzdong@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn, jes72222@yahoo.com.cn,
zhiqian.bo@areva-td.com
of the communication in process bus may be occurred.
In response to this question, the performance of process
Abstract: The transient traveling wave is mostly used in
bus communication of transient traveling waves is analyzed,
the areas of protections, fault line selections and fault
and the impact to the relay is also discussed in paper.
locations due to its good characteristics of immunity to
power swing, fault resistant, and CT saturations etc. The
usage of transient travelling wave should rely on the
2. Process bus modeling to transmit transient
real-time communications of SAV data, which produce
travelling wave data
the heavy load to the process bus in the digital substation.
In response to this question, the performance of process
2.1 IED models
bus communication of transient traveling wave data is
Three types of IEDs should be modeled: Merging Unit
analyzed, and the impact to the relay is also discussed in
(MU), Intelligent Circuit Breaker (ICB), and the Protection
paper. It proves that the up to 77640Hz sampling rate is
and Control Unit (P&C) in this case to verify the performance
available for the real-time SAV transmission in the Lan
of the process bus.
speed of 100Mbps, which is limited by the process bus
The MU IED is to merge three phase current and voltage
load capacity. The lower sampling data or transformed
and then transmit the raw data sampled values to the LAN
data (e.g. wavelet transform) should be used for the
network as described in the IEC 61850-5. For the network
applications of travelling wave in digital substation.
performance simulation purpose, it in fact serves as a traffic
Although it is the first step of the research of the
generator with the transient travelling wave. The raw data
travelling wave usage in the digital substation, the work in
sample rate to the transient travelling wave is not configured
this paper is good to the future constructions of the smart
according to IEC 61850, hence the ideal sample rate-1MHz
substation, which is based on the full-frequency signals
adopted in the traditional travelling wave based devices is
fusion.
used for the initial default rate.
Keywords: Smart substation; process bus communication;
The functionalities of ICB are to receive the trip message,
and
send a multicast GOOSE/GSSE event (the status of the
traveling wave; OPNET
circuit breaker) to the protection IEDs. Similarly as the MU
IED, user can configure the event packet size, address and
transmission type (P2P, multicast, broadcast).
1. Introduction
The P&C IED could be configured to two different modes:
the normal load mode and the fault mode. It generates the
The separate SAV and GOOSE Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
constant rate status packets and sends them to the PC station
communication networks are usually adopted in the current
in the normal mode, while it generates the variable rate status
smart/digital substation based on IEC61850 protocol. But it is
packets and multicasts the trip GOOSE message to the
un-doubtful that the process bus combined with SAV and
corresponding breaker IEDs in the fault mode. For it works
GOOSE network is the future priority communication mode.
properly, the user also only needs to configure its address,
The transient traveling wave is mostly used in the areas of
multicast group address, destination address and other
protections, fault line selections, and fault locations, due to its
parameters according to the simulation requirements.
good characteristics of immunity to power swing, fault
The communication protocol stacks in MU, ICB and P&C
resistant, CT saturations etc. Although the non-convenient
are relatively simple in order to achieve the real-time
transformers only can linearly transform the lower frequency
communications, which only include 3 layers: application
signals at current, the valid transform to the transient
layer, link layer and physical layer. It can be simply achieved
travelling wave is definitely available in latest future. The
by using the model of Ethernet_station_adv in OPNET
usage of transient travelling wave should rely on the real-time
module as shown in Fig.1.
communications of SAV data, which produce the heavy load
to the process bus in digital substation. If it throws all digital
travelling waves SAV data into the process bus in digital
substation as that of power frequency SAV data, the
performance of the relay and control devices in substation
will not be improved, but may be deteriorated since the jams

2010 China International Conference on Electricity Distribution

Fig.4 Current traveling waves.

Tab.1 Average End-to-End (ETE) delay with different

sampling rate

Fig.1. Ethernet_station_adv model in OPENT modeler

As show in Fig.1, the raw data source module (bursty_gen)

allows the user to define the packet format, packet size, and
the packet rate the user wanted to be generated (configure the
sample rate, start time, stop time, packet size, and address in
model.). The sink module will first calculate the packet
transferring time, collect other statistical data for all the
packets that come from the network and then destroy them so
that memory space could be freed.
The eth_mac_intf, defer and mac modules implement the
Ethernet protocols and algorithms. This is the place where
OPNET processes the incoming and outgoing packets.
The hub_rv0 and hub_tx0 are OPNET symbol for point to
point receiver and transmitter. And the bus_rv0 and bus_tx0
are bus receiver and bus transmitter. They are used for nodes
to be connected to the switch or bus.
The switcher is modeled with the ethernet4_switch_adv
module in OPNET, which supports the IEEE802.1Q and
IEEE802.1W protocols; so that the visual lan (VLAN) can be
divided with the communication ports, and communication
priorities also can be set inflexibly.

Sampling
Rate(kHz)
Interval of
SAV packets
(ms)
ETE
dealy(ms)

20

40

50

60

75

77.64

0.05

0.025

0.02

0.017

0.013

0.013

0.012

0.012

0.012

0.012

0.012

0.012

It is shown in Tab.1 that the average ETE delay for SAV

message less than 77640Hz sampling rate is 0.0123ms, which
is much less than 4ms, and satisfaction to the requirements to
SAV messages communication on 100Mbps by IEC61850.
But the ETE delay is linearly enlarged with the increasing of
the simulation time for the sampling rate more than 77640Hz,
and cannot achieve the stable operation status.

2.2 Communication simulations in process bus

2.2.1

P2P communication

The model of P2P communications for the Lan speed of

100Mbps is shown in Fig.3. The IEC61850-9-1 protocol is
used, which the maximum data package size is 123 bytes. The
purpose of the P2P simulation is to check out the real-time
SAV data communications with the possible maximum
sampling rate.

Fig.3 P2P model for travelling waves communication

The most priorities of the travelling wave is the initial fault
detection to the fault occurrence, but it is decayed soon due to
the loss in line in original few microsecond after fault as
shown in Fig.4. Hence it is no need of the continuous
travelling wave SAV data transmission as that for the power
frequency signal SAV data. But the high sampling rate data
with least 5ms is needed to achieve the good precision of the
travelling wave sampling in this paper. The simulation result
is shown in Tab.1 with different sampling rate.

Fig.4 ETE delay of SAV messages with 77641Hz sampling

rate.

2.2.2 Communication in single unit

The OPNET model for transient travelling wave data
communication in single unit with Lan speed of 100Mbps is
shown in Fig.5. The MU node is the travelling wave SAV data
generator, and the P&C node does not only receive the SAV
data from MU, but also full-duplex communicate with the
ICB node through the switcher. The ICB node receives the
GOOSE trip message from the P&C, and sends the statue
GOOSE message to the P&C. The simulation parameters are
shown in Tab.2.
The sequent data flows among nodes in unit are illustrated
as following
MU node is the SAV data generator; it continuously
broadcasts the SAV data in 5ms after fault occurrence (0s)
with 123bytes data package. The GOOSE status message
continuously broadcasted by ICB node before circuit breaker
tripping may slow the performance of travelling wave SAV
transmission, hence the 5ms interval GOOSE status data
broadcasting with size of 130 bytes is used in process bus to
evaluate the performance of transmission of SAV data.
The GOOSE trip message with size of 100 bytes is sent by

2010 China International Conference on Electricity Distribution

the P&C node at the 5ms after fault, and repeatedly broadcast
4 times in the following 4 ms with variable intervals (the
broadcast time is 0ms, 1ms, 2ms and 4ms in this case) as
shown in Fig.5. The ETE delay of GOOSE trip signal is
0.022ms from the simulations. Since the communication
between P&C and ICB is full duplex, the transmission of
GOOSE trip message is no influence to that of transmission
of SAV and GOOSE status message.

of data packet
const.(0.001)
const.(0.002)
const.(0.003)
const.(0.004)

With VLAN
0.0396ms
0.0396ms
0.0396ms
0.0396ms

No VLAN
0.0396ms
0.0396ms
0.0396ms
0.0396ms

It is shown that the impact of GOOSE status packet

communication to that of SAV communication is limited due
to the less size of the packets. In the load operation, the
interval of GOOSE status packet is much more than 5ms, and
will not impact to the travelling wave SAV data
communication.

3. Discussion of travelling wave signals with

application in digital substation

Fig.5 OPNET model for transient travelling wave data

communication in single bay unit.

Tab.2 Simulation parameters

Lan speed

Communication
protocl

100BaseT

Ethernet frame

Style of
data flow
SAV
mesages

Node of Start time

data flow
of data
occruence flow (s)
MU

const.
(0)

On load
time of
data
folow (s)
const.
(0.005)

Communication
mode
Boradcast,
Full-duplex
Interarriv
Data
-al time
packet
of data
length
packet(s)
(bytes)
const.
const.
(0.00001
(123)
288)

GOOSE
const.
const.
const.
trip
P&C
(0.005)
(0.004)
(0.001)
message
GOOSE
const.
const.
variable.(
status
ICB
(0)
(0.005)
t)1
message
1: variable.(t) responses to the interarrival time of data packet

const.
(100)

The most applications of travelling wave signals in

substation focus on the travelling wave based protection, fault
location, and fault line selections. They are divided into two
groups: real-time operation group (e.g. protection) and
non-real time operation group (e.g. fault location and fault
line selection).
For the cases of real time operation group, the mostly
adopted process bus with the speed 100Mbps cannot support
it due to the unacceptable time delay. There are two possible
solutions; the first one is to adopt the high Lan speed,
e.g.1000Mbps Lan as shown in Fig.6, with which the
sampling rate below 78125Hz can be achieved to the
real-time transmission listed in Tab.4. Although the accepted
frequency does not reach the ideal 1MHz, it still can be used
in the most travelling wave protection cases with less
precision.
Tab.4 Average End-to-End (ETE) delay with different
sampling rate with the 1MHz Lan speed
Sampling
50
60
75
77.64
500
781.25
Rate(kHz)
Interarrival
0.02
0.017 0.013 0.013 0.002 0.0013
time of SAV
packets (ms)
ETE
0.0015 0.0015 0.0015 0.0015 0.0015 0.0015
dealy(ms)

const.
(130)

Fig.6 ETE delay of SAV messages with 781251Hz sampling

rate.

Fig.5 GOOSE trip packet from P&C node

Tab.3 ETE delay of SAV packets

Interarrival time

Average ETE delay of SAV packet

And another is pre-treating the traveling wave SAV in MU

with the modern digital signal processing algorithm, e.g.
wavelet transform, and then the data after transformed with
less length is only transmitted. The heavy load transmission
of travelling wave SAV data is avoided, but the following
questions, such as what types of transformed data is sufficient

2010 China International Conference on Electricity Distribution

for the protection and whether the transformed data can prove
the inherent fault characteristics in original travelling wave
SAV data , should be answered.
For the case of non-real time applications, e.g. travelling
wave recorder or fault location, fault line selection, the high
sampling rate, e.g.1MHz can be used in MU; but the size of
each communication packet should be limited, and much
longer ETE delays should be accepted in the devices.

4Conclusions
The performance of the travelling wave communication in
process bus is simulated in paper to check whether the
traveling wave data can be transmitted or shared in the bus. It
proves that the up to 77640Hz sampling rate is available in
the P2P Lan with the speed of 100Mbps, which cannot afford
the requirements of the typical travelling wave sampling rate
(no less than 200kHz). The GOOSE messages (status and trip
messages) are proved to no deteriorate the transmissions of
SAV data in process bus. For the real-time application of
travelling wave signals, the possible ways are using the
higher band bus (1000Mbps), or to pre-treat, transform the
SAV data to reflect the inherent fault characteristics in MU,
and then transmit the transformed data to IED in process bus
with fewer loads.

Acknowledgements

[4] Brand KPBrunner C, Wimmer W. Design of IEC 61850

based substation automation systems according to
customer requirements. CIGRE B5103, Paris, 29.08.03.09. 2004
[5] Brunner C. IEC 61850 Process connection-a smart
solution to connect the primary equipment to the
substation automation system. PSCC 2005 (15th Power
System Computation Conference), Liege/Belgium,
22.08-26.08, 2005
[6] DONG Nan, ZHU Lin, DUAN Xian-zhong. Study on
process-level network in substation using OPENT
simulation. Relay. 2006.21
[7] WU Jun-xing, HU Min-qiang, WU Zai-jun, XI Guo-fu,
DU Yan-sen. Testing of IEC 61850 Based Intelligent
Electronic Device and Substation Automation System.
Power System Technology, 2007, 31(2).
[8] Gu Mi, He Renmu. Simulation and research of
performance of communication network in substation.
Power System Technolog.

Biography
Bin Wang received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering
from Shandong University of Technology, China, in 1999,
and Ph.D. degree from Shandong University, China, in 2005.
Currently, He is working as an assistant researcher in
Tsinghua University, China. His main research interests are
power system protection, Smart substation automation with
IEC61850 and DGs protection and control.

The authors show the appreciates to the supports to the work

in paper in part by Specialized Research Fund for the
Doctoral Program of Higher Education under Grant
200800031034, Beijing Natural Science Foundation under
Grant 3102017, and the Research Fund from State Key
Laboratory of Control and Simulation of Power System and
Generation Equipments granted No. SKLD09M32.

References
[1] T. Skeie, S. Johanessen, and C. Brunner, ETHERNET in
substation automation, IEEE Control Syst. Mag., vol. 22,
no. 3, pp. 4351, Jun 2002.
[2] F. Engler, T. L. Kern, L. Andersson, B. Kruimer, G.
Schimmel, and K. Schwarz, IEC 61850 based digital
communication as interface to the primary equipment, in
Proc. CIGRE, 2004, B3-205.
[3] Apostolov AP, Muschlitz B. Object modeling of
measuring functions in IEC61850 based IEDs
Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition,
2003 IEEE PES, Sept. 2003.

Xinzhou Dong received the B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degree in

electrical engineering from Xian Jiaotong University, China,
in 1983, 1991 and 1996 respectively.
He furthered his post-doctoral research at the Electrical
Engineering Station of Tianjin University, Tianjin, China,
from 1997 to 1998. Since February 1999, he has been
working at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, where he
currently serves as a Professor and the Director of Research
Center of Protection and Control between Tsinghua Univ. and
AREVA Co. His research interests include protective relaying,
fault location, and application of wavelet transforms in power
systems.
Zhiqian Bo received the B.Sc. degree from the Northeastern
University, China in 1982 and Ph.D. degree from the Queen's
University of Belfast, UK in 1988 respectively.
From 1989 to 1997, he worked at the Power Systems Group
in the University of Bath. Currently, he is with ALSTOM
GRID UK and responsible for new technology developments.
His main research interests are power system protection and
control.